n.paradoxa received support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (2012-2014) and
the Flo Art Foundation (2011-2012)

Remember : Statistical analyses of the presence or visibility of women artists have
been done repeatedly during the last 30 years in an effort to outline the
numbers of women involved in the art world and the levels of
discrimination at work in their participation. This page lists several
surveys related to the position of women artists in exhibitions, museums,
in the cultural industries in general and in art education.

Please send
any details of other surveys of the position of the contemporary woman
artist (1970-present) anywhere in the world to: ktpress@ktpress.co.uk

Feminism in the visual arts...

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[ISSN 1461-0434]
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Statistics about
women artists in the art world

There are lies, damned lies and statistics !

Statistics
may give us some indication of changes in women artists' involvement in
the art world and their hierarchical distribution across its institutions
(i.e. the largest numbers of women can always be found the bottom of the
cultural scale of value and prestige, and the fewest at the top).
Statistics are always a retrospective snapshot, they are not a
prescription of the level of participation alloted to women. In this
sense, they are neither self-evident, nor are they self-explanatory. The
same statistics can be used negatively to reinforce as much as positively
to challenge current social and cultural policies. What they measure and
the methods used to collect or analyse them should be questioned when it
comes to assessing positive measures for change in the position of the
woman artist. (Last Updated: Feb 2016)

European Community

Danielle Cliche, Ritva Mitchell, Andreas Joh. Weisand Pyramid or
Pillars: Unveiling the Status of Women in Arts and Media Professions in
Europe (Germany: ARCult Media/ERICarts/ZfKf, 2001). This survey looked
at 8 European countries and the situation of women in all the arts and in
the media in Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal,
Spain and the UK. On the visual arts, it finds women artists' presence at
between 38%-45% of all artists, 30-60% of art students, 3%-20% of
lecturers and professors. Appendices also contain useful information on
women artists' situation in Croatia and the Czech Republic. This report is
also discussed in Arsis (Helskinki, Arts Council of Finland)
special issue on Women in the Arts/Changing Landscapes 02/2000.

Australia

Annette Van Den Bosch "Women Artists' Careers: Public Policy and
the Market" in Alison Beale and Bosch (eds) Ghosts in the
Machine: Women and Cultural Policy in Canada and Australia. Ontario:
Garamond Press, 1998. Critical analysis drawn from different surveys of
the position of the women artist in Australia in the last 20 years,
especially the 1984 and 1988 surveys of Australia Arts Council on
strategies for women artists.

Fenja Braster and Sandra Sartori "Frauenpräsenz in
Ausstellungen Dusseldorfer Kunstinstitutionen, 1993-1998"
(Dusseldorf: Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Dusseldorf/HSRG, June 1999). A
detailed study of the presence in women at all levels of the German museum
and gallery system. Figures also available on the web: Frauenpräsenz in Ausstellungen Dusseldorfer Kunstinstitutionen, 1993-1998

MAV has collected statistics about the situation of women in the visual arts in Spain since its founding in 2009.
These are available online in MAV's Observatorio. These now form the basis of complaints to the government of public institutions failing to maintain the 2007 legislation in Spain which prohibited discrimination against women in the arts.(Artículo 26. La igualdad en el ámbito de la creación yproducción artística e intelectual).

Sweden

Marita Flisbäck (2012) 'Creating a Life: The Role of Symbolic and Economic Structures in the Gender Dynamics of Swedish Artists 1028-6632', Downloadable report: GUP 156696

Pam Skelton "Women and Art
Education" (National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher
Education) NATFHE Journal May/June 1985 pp.18-21. Overview of the
relationship between women teachers and women students in art schools. Women Working in the Arts (London: Arts Council of England document, 1992)

Take a look at recent studies by the National Endowment for the Arts on their website, and look for the Women Artists: 1990-2005 (December 2008). Research Note #96. Their additional analysis of the situation of artists points to discrimination, lower incomes and significant under-representation of women artists in many cultural fields, including fine art. One significant finding is that the numbers of married women amongst artists are the same as for all women in the working population but that the proportion who are also mothers is 6% lower than in the general population. See also: NEA report on Women and Minorities in 1978 and correction to the figures from 1980.

R. Rosen and C. Brauer(eds) Making their Mark:Women Artists
Move into the Mainstream,1970-1985 (USA, Abbeville Press,1989). Ferris
Olin has compiled an good overview of women artist's visibility in art
journals, exhibitions and analysis of different US arts organisations in
the 1970s and 1980s.

The Guerrilla Girls The Banana Report: The Guerrilla Girls Review
the Whitney (exhibition catalogue, The Clocktower, New York, 1987).
See also the Guerrilla Girls website.

Ann Kalmbach 'The position of women artists within the aesthetic community' (Rochester Institute of Technology, MFA thesis from 1974 - accessible online) brings together work on statistics from the early 1970s women's art movement in the USA on galleries and art schools because it cites many reports and surveys 1970-1974.